Central Kansas Library System

Thirteen-year-old Travis, living in cramped quarters with his alcoholic grandfather, longs for his old life in the country, and struggles in school to hide the fact that he cannot read, but a persistent teacher and a special girl open his eyes to a new world.

In 1851 in South Carolina, Miles, a twelve-year-old slave, is sent to a "breaking ground" to have his spirit broken but endures the experience by secretly taking reading lessons from another slave.

Realizing that her father's lack of work has endangered her family, nine-year-old Juice decides that she must return to school and learn to read in order to help her chances of surviving and keeping their house.

Sitting opposite Tina while she does her homework, her younger brother Tim learns to read right along with her, only he does it upside down.

Ruby wants to be a teacher, but after her father's death in a logging accident she must quit school to care for her ten brothers and sisters, until a chance meeting with a lonely old blind woman transforms her life.

A wolf learns to read in order to impress a group of farmyard animals he has met.